Chapter 9 #2
After that, we find a rhythm. He comes through the loading door with an empty carrier and I have the next one waiting. I reach behind me for a towel and he puts one into my hand.
“Coffee to the dock.”
“It’s ready.”
“Mrs. Doyle needs—”
“No onions. I remember.”
Somewhere around the two-hundredth egg sandwich, we stop asking each other what needs doing. We just work.
And sometime around noon, with my hair coming out of its knot and Julian Volkov standing in my kitchen in jeans with a dish towel over one shoulder, I realize something considerably more dangerous than wanting him.
Wanting him is easy, but this isn’t that. This is three hundred things happening at once and Julian becoming part of the machinery without ever getting in the way.
He pays attention. Apparently that is extremely attractive too.
This is becoming inconvenient.
By five thirty, we’ve made three hundred and fifteen sandwiches.
Wyatt ate four, which means technically we’ve distributed three hundred and eleven, but I refuse to let a seven-year-old compromise my statistics.
The last chowder goes to the fire station.
Harriet goes home. Mabel takes the list. Lucy disappears to photograph the dory, which has finally been confirmed as belonging to a man named Frank in Eastport, creating several additional questions no one can answer.
I lock Salt & Sage. Then I lean my forehead against the door.
“Done?” Julian asks behind me.
“No.”
“No?”
“I’ll be done in April.”
“Ah.”
“But I’m stopping.”
“That seems wise.”
I turn. I’m filthy. He’s filthy. There’s a streak of something dark along his jaw. Sawdust is still in his hair. His jeans are wet to the knee and his shirt has a tear near one cuff. Somewhere today he lost his elegance entirely.
I’ve never wanted him more.
“I’ll walk you home,” he says.
“You don’t have to.”
“I want to.”
We walk.
The fog rolls in off the water the way it does here, thick and grey.
It swallows the harbor lights one by one until Water Street is a corridor of soft glowing smudges and the ocean is a sound rather than a place.
The whole town goes quiet and close and strange.
There’s only the wet crunch of the lane under our feet and his body beside me, close enough that our arms nearly touch.
Neither of us talks. It’s not the kind of silence that needs filling.
It’s the other kind, the rare kind, the kind I’ve spent my whole life too busy to find.
Our shoulders brush once, and neither of us moves away. A few steps later his fingers close around mine, cool and strong. I look down, then back up at him.
“You’re holding my hand.”
“I had noticed.”
“Just checking.”
“Do you object?”
I tighten my fingers.
“No.”
We keep walking. My feet hurt. There’s chowder on my sleeve. My hair is beyond rescue. I’ve been awake since six and working since seven.
I honestly cannot remember a day I have loved more.
We walk half a block before I say, “Theo likes you.”
Julian glances at me. “Does he?”
“He handed you a hammer.”
“I was there.”
“That’s practically an adoption ceremony. Another six months and he’ll let you use the good drill.”
“I will try not to be overwhelmed.”
“I’m serious. People like having you around.” His expression changes slightly. “That surprises you.”
“No.”
“It absolutely does.”
“I am familiar with people liking me, Penny.”
I laugh. “God, that’s arrogant.”
“It is also true.”
Unfortunately, it is.
“Fine. People like you. But that’s not what I mean.” I swing our joined hands lightly. “You’re good here.”
“At repairing docks?”
“At all of it. Theo. Mabel. Eunice. Arthur pretending he doesn’t like you. Harriet ordering you around my kitchen.”
His mouth curves. “Mrs. Coyne is formidable.”
“She criticized the way you wrapped egg sandwiches.”
“I improved considerably.”
“You did.”
We walk a little farther.
“You fit,” I say, and Julian goes quiet. Not evasive quiet. And not the amused silence he uses when he’s waiting for me to stop asking questions.
“I haven’t done that in a very long time,” he says finally.
“Wrapped sandwiches?”
“Fit.”
Oh.
The fog moves around us, soft and wet and close.
“Maybe you just haven’t been trying.”
“Perhaps.”
I shoot him a look from under my lashes. “That’s suspiciously agreeable.”
“I am tired.”
“Good. I’ll save all my difficult questions for tomorrow.”
“I never doubted it.”
His thumb moves once over the back of my hand.
I smile and keep walking.
My cottage appears out of the fog all at once. No porch light because the hill still has no power. One candle burns in the hurricane lamp I left inside the front window, and the house looks small and warm and waiting.
We stop at the bottom of the porch steps. Neither of us lets go.
“Thank you,” I say.
“For what?”
“Today.”
“You don’t need to thank me. You fed three hundred people.”
“Three hundred and eleven. Plus Wyatt ate four.”
“Of course.”
“And you rebuilt half of Theo’s dock.”
“A small section.”
“You carried approximately six thousand things.”
“An exaggeration.”
“Okay, five thousand.”
“Closer.”
I look at him.
“You fit here.”
He is quiet for a beat too long.
“You keep saying that.”
“Because you keep acting surprised.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“No?”
“I’m uncertain.”
“About what?”
He looks past me at the cottage, then towards the invisible town behind us.
“I have spent a very long time being good at living beside things. Beside people. Beside places. Near enough to know them. Not near enough to—”
He stops, and I wait until he looks back at me.
“You make that distinction difficult to maintain.”
My heart gives one hard beat.
“Is that bad?”
“I haven’t decided.”
“That’s very inconvenient.”
“It is.”
“Because I have.”
His whole attention focuses on me.
“What have you decided?”
I step closer.
“That I like you here.”
His eyes drop to my mouth.
“Here?”
“In Black Harbor.”
“Ah.”
“And here.”
I tug gently on our joined hands until he’s standing directly in front of me. The fog closes around us. His free hand comes up and cups the side of my face. There’s no hesitation tonight.
He kisses me, slowly at first. Then not slowly at all. I slide my hand under his jacket and around his waist. He makes that low sound again, the one I discovered last night and have thought about an unreasonable number of times since.
His mouth moves over mine, cool and hungry. I lean into him until there’s no fog between us, no town, no porch, no anything except the hard line of his body and the fact that I know exactly what will happen if I keep kissing him.
I want to. God, I want to.
Julian breaks the kiss first. Barely. His mouth stays close enough that I feel the words.
“Penny.”
“Don’t say goodnight.”
His eyes close for one second.
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Good.”
“I was going to ask whether you wanted me to come inside.”
Every part of me answers before my brain does. His gaze searches mine.
“And,” he says quietly, “I think we should both understand that if I do, I am unlikely to sleep on your sofa.”
He’s not being coy. He’s giving me a choice.
I put my hand flat against his chest. I want him. I also want this. But for once in my life, I would rather not sprint at something just because I can see where it ends.
“Not tonight,” I say.
Julian’s expression doesn’t close, and he doesn’t step away. He doesn’t make me regret saying it. He simply nods.
“No,” he says. “Not tonight.”
I’m relieved. I’m also, immediately and unhelpfully, sorry.
“Ask me again.”
His eyes darken.
“I intend to.”
“Good.”
He kisses me again, deep enough that my knees reconsider their responsibilities, brief enough that I know he’s doing it on purpose. Then he steps back. Our hands stay linked until the last possible second.
“Goodnight, Penny.”
“Goodnight, Julian.”
He walks into the fog, and I watch until he’s gone.
Then I go inside my dark little house, lock the door behind me, and stand there with my back against it.
I already knew I wanted Julian Volkov. Today I discovered something worse. I like having him in my kitchen. I like his hand finding mine in the fog. I like knowing that when I open a door, sooner or later, he’s going to walk through it. And I think I’m beginning to understand why he keeps coming.
Because I keep asking. Because he keeps saying yes.
And somewhere along the way, those have stopped feeling like two different things.